


Sin Hearts and Cinnamon Rolls

by Niamh_St_George



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/Niamh_St_George
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Internet memes and Diablo III go together like... two things that have no business going together. (Set very solidly in Season 1.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sin Hearts and Cinnamon Rolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mosca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/gifts).



> Thank you, lovely recipient, for giving me the chance to write for a fandom I almost certainly wouldn't have written for otherwise. You requested lightheartedness and friendship, and I dearly hope this delivers.

The rain hit the roof in a steady patter—chances were _excellent_ it was freezing rain by this point, which made Ravi all the more thankful he was inside, protected against said elements, locked in a life-or-death battle against demonic forces. Not a particularly unusual way for him to choose to spend a free evening, true, but having company during such a quest, that was new. All in all, Liv’s attempts to interfere with his living situation while…ahem, _preserving_ Major’s living situation had turned out rather well. Tonight’s cozy ambience of battle cries and demonic screams were proof enough of that.

Beyond that, two hand-tossed extra-large pizzas not only tasted better with company, one also tended to receive less of a strange, judgmental—occasionally pitying—look from the delivery-boy.

“I’ve been thinking,” Major began, the crisp snap of a can cracking open cutting through the shriek of dying succubi.

“That it’s rather a shame multiplayer mode doesn’t allow for in-game companions?” Ravi replied, helping himself to another slice of pizza as he glanced over his laptop screen at Major. “Because, let me tell you, that’s bothered me for ages.”

“Well, that. Yeah.” Major took a long pull from the can, then eyed the pizza contemplatively before pulling another slice free as well. “But…you know what doesn’t make a damned bit of sense?”

Stygian crawlers swarmed around them, their dying shrieks issuing from the two pairs of laptop speakers. “Given the current state of affairs in the Arreat Crater, I may have to ask you you to clarify that somewhat. What doesn’t make sense?”

Major lifted his gaze briefly, his face lit with a red-orange glow, reflecting the game’s hellish locale, and in between chews, said, “Cinnamon rolls.”

Ravi’s brain stuttered over the words in a way he couldn’t blame on the numerous carbonated caffeine beverages they’d already consumed, cans littering the table and… yes, now the floor. He stared at Major a moment, then back at the screen, trying to connect a series of dots that appeared to defy connection.

Cinnamon rolls.

_Cinnamon rolls?_

Ravi took a moment—several, to be honest—to consider this.He hadn’t imagined pastries in general required much thought beyond the eating of them with either tea or coffee, the choice between which was a philosophical debate for the ages. But that, in general, didn’t render them lacking in logic. He frowned, momentarily distracted by the demons swarming his monk. “Insofar as a pastry can make sense,” he finally replied, fingers tapping over keys and sending a barrage of spirit attacks out to obliterate the monsters, “I think the cinnamon roll makes a fair bit of it. Gooey filling on the inside, preventing sticky fingers—and yet, handily unrollable. Also: delicious.”

“The meme,” Major clarified around a mouthful of double pepperoni over the clacking of his own keyboard. His demon hunter sent a bloated malachor exploding into a shower of gore. “I don’t get it.”

Ravi shrugged one shoulder. “Beyond the fact you expect an internet meme to be logical, I suppose the question of appearances versus reality is never an easy one to contemplate. The thing that appears harmless might kill you—or might not.” He thought fleetingly of Liv, and then felt a stab of guilt for doing so. “On the other hand, the thing that looks dangerous might not kill you—or it might.” He frowned. “Though I confess how it all stemmed from a pastry is rather beyond me.”

Major snorted. “I heard _The Onion_ started it.”

“ _The Onion_ , to blame for cinnamon rolls. That has no business making as much sense as it does.”Monk and demon hunter together ventured deeper and deeper into the Arreat Crater.“No true cinnamon rolls here, alas,” he murmured. “Unless you think Adria’s secretly a flaky confection? Azmodan? Though I suppose he’s less cinnamon roll, more Sin…namon Heart?” When Major didn’t offer a comeback of any sort, sarcastic or otherwise, Ravi glanced over the top of his screen again. “Oh, come now—it wasn’t that bad. Cinnamon roll, Sinnamon Heart? Not my best, assuredly, but hardly my worst.”

But Major’s silence stretched out, lasting long enough to be troubling. Finally, he shook his head, as if to clear it; Ravi wondered, and not for the first time, what kinds of shadows he shook away.

“It’s just… I’m not sure how much I believe in the metaphorical cinnamon roll. You know—looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a cinnamon roll.”

“That’s… surprisingly cynical of you,” Ravi observed.

Major huffed a laugh, glancing over his screen. “Cynical? That’s a first,” he retorted, arching a wry eyebrow.

“Am I to assume you’ve never been called a cynic?” he asked. Cynically.

“It’s not the sort of personality type that thrives in my field.” The answer came with a shrug. “If you’re too naïve, too altruistic, you burn out. Too cynical and you cut yourself off at the knees.” For a moment his gaze seemed to turn inward, as if recalling some private, unpleasant memory. “And usually the kids are too adept at sniffing out that kind of… contempt.” Several more seconds ticked by in silence. “Hell, they’re cynical enough for all of us.”

The last wave of demons slain, three chests spat forth piles of gold and shimmering loot. Monk and demon hunter ran in haphazard circles, collecting it. “So what you’re saying is that you don’t believe in the cinnamon roll, too pure for this world.”

The demon hunter’s armor and weaponry changed as Major spoke. “If we’re talking literal cinnamon rolls,” he said, “that’s a maybe. Metaphorical cinnamon rolls, not so much.”

Ravi checked his monk’s gear—inventory nearly full. _Again_ , damn it. He jettisoned low-level armor, useless weaponry, and garbage runes, saying, “So we’re all either cinnamon rolls that could kill you, or—wait, what are the options again? Looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a cinnamon roll.”

“Looks like a cinnamon roll, could actually kill you. Looks like it could kill you, actually a cinnamon roll, and—”

“Looks like it could kill you, and could actually kill you. Right. Got it.” They were off again—another bloated malachor, another shower of gore. “So, in light of that, which do you think you are?”

Across the table, Major’s head came up with a jerk, shooting Ravi a look over his screen. “I don’t know. None of the above?”

“Oh, you have to be at least one of the above,” argued Ravi. “That’s the point of any meme. All right, I’ll go first. I am an absolute, bona fide cinnamon roll.” His pause was a dramatic one as monk and demon hunter advanced to the Tower of the Damned. “Definitely too pure for this world.”

Major’s expression twisted to one of unvarnished skepticism—one might even call it cynical skepticism—as he took another bite of pizza.

With mock affront, Ravi inclined his head at Major. “Am I to interpret your silence as doubt? Do you _doubt_ me?”

Appearances and reality. A breach existed between them, certainly, and it was a distance that seemed to grow greater by the day. High-functioning zombies in Seattle, passing as anyone else with a normal resting heart rate; they were maintaining appearances. Ravi did not begrudge Liv that—he couldn’t. What he could do, what he absolutely could do, was work to narrow that rift. Maybe, hopefully—hopefully—close it completely.

“If the whole point is the gap between appearances and reality,” Major drawled dryly, “I’m pretty sure you can’t be the one to decide for yourself you’re cinnamon roll, considering you control your appearance and already know your reality.”

“And I’m fairly sure I just did.Hulking phasebeast ahead, by the by. And if I’m a cinnamon roll, then you, sir, are the cinnamoniest cinnamon roll there ever was. The Cinnabon King, in fact.” He scratched his chin in mock thought. “Or would that be King Cinnabon? I think that has a better ring to it.”

“Got it,” Major replied. The demon, predictably, exploded. “King Cinnabon? How do you figure that?”

“I can tell you right now, I’d never have moved in if you looked to be the type who’d kill me in my sleep, which removes you from two categories immediately, leaving the remaining two from which to choose.” Succubi and various and sundry demons swarmed them, weapons and energy attacks exploding them into piles of loot.

“I’m going to need some healing—you’re saying I _look_ like a cinnamon roll?”

“Already on it. All I’m saying is you don’t _not_ look like a cinnamon roll. And don’t look at me like that—I didn’t make up the meme rules. If the options are that you either look like a cinnamon roll, or look like you could kill me, I’m sorry, Major, but you are undeniably a cinnamon roll.”

“…It really disturbs me that makes any sense at all.”

“Which means,” Ravi continued as if he’d not spoken, “you’re either a lethal or non-lethal cinnamon roll. Kill anybody yet, succubi and hulking phasebeasts aside?”

“ _No_.”

He shrugged, dealing a killing blow to yet another bloated malachor. “I rest my case, King Cinnabon.”

They descended another level further into the Tower of the Damned, to Cydaea and onward, eventually, to destroy Azmodan’s Sin Hearts, deep in the Heart of the Damned. A quest they’d played a hundred times since Ravi moved in.

“So we’re, what,” Major asked, draining one soda and reaching for another. “A pair of cinnamon rolls?”

“Indeed,” Ravi answered solemnly.“Too pure for this world.”


End file.
